


new form blasted out

by coraxes



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Sloane/Hurley - Freeform, DEAD FIC, F/M, Lup Lives AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-02 10:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12724677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: Lup woke up in a Phandolin bar, alone like she had always been, with a backstabbing dwarf locked up in a vault and a pocketful of coins.Three years later in Goldcliff, a friend from work offered her an exciting new job opportunity.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Cannonball Me, Baby](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10796340) by [coraxes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is a continuation/expansion of a short I did forever ago, "[lost, but i don't know why](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10796340/chapters/26107023)." It won't follow the progression of that, but you can consider it a jumping-off point. The idea just wouldn't leave me alone. 
> 
> I'm not sure how long this will be. Actual chapters will be longer than this one, since it's just a prologue; I'll probably have chapter one posted later today.
> 
> Title is from Dan Deacon's "When I Was Done Dying."

Lup came back to consciousness slowly, groaning as she rubbed her aching temples.  Her eyes itched, her tongue felt fuzzy, and there was a half-empty tankard by her face; she drew the logical conclusion.

“What the fuck did you put in this?” she asked the bartender, a youngish dwarf woman. 

“Uh, beer?” said the woman, raising an eyebrow.

Lup kind of doubted that, but she sniffed the tankard and then performed a discreet spell when her very scientific sniffing didn’t turn up anything unusual.  It did just seem to be beer.  “How long was I out?”

The bartender shrugged.  “Twenty minutes?”

That wasn’t too bad, then.  She must’ve just been tired from—from—

Shit.  What was she doing here, again?  She had travelled here trying to find a lead, right, probably a lead on a job.  Lup had started adventuring…a while ago.  She couldn’t remember when exactly, so probably a couple centuries back.  No other job gave her quite as many opportunities to blow shit up.

Wait, no, she hadn’t been following a lead.  She had just gotten done with one.  There was a cave, right, and some kind of backstabbing asshole who she’d had to lock in it when he tried to kill her.  Lup patted her hip pocket and, sure enough, felt a hefty chunk of change.  That should keep her going for a while, but she should probably head out of this backwater.  The Rockseeker guy had seemed like a big deal.

It was close to sunset, a little late in the day to be hitting the road, but Lup didn’t really care.  She wasn’t _that_ tired, and anyway the dark didn’t bother her.  So she bought dinner (it was terrible—she could do much better) and set off.

Lup had no clear direction to go, but then, she hardly ever did.

She walked until morning and then found a quiet place off the road to go into the trance that was the closest she ever got to sleeping.  Something wasn’t right, though.  She couldn’t settle down; her brain kept catching on the idea that there should be _someone_ there with her.  Lup missed having her arm around someone’s waist.  She rolled over and half-remembered the smell of—aftershave?

Fantasy Jesus, she thought, I need to get laid. 

She kept going, picked up a woman in the next town and then a man in the next when that didn’t help.

It took Lup a while to realize that it wasn’t the sex she was missing.  She was just fucking _lonely._ Which was new.  Lup had been alone for most of her life, but she’d never regretted the solitude; if she wanted company she went to a bar, charmed the whole place, and left with a legion of new fans.  Now that didn’t feel like enough.

She was pushing three hundred, she figured.  It had to happen sometime.

Lup had no friends, no family she could visit, no one to tie her down to a particular place; so she just picked a city with a little excitement and decided to stay there.  Goldcliff was just the kind of city Lup liked.  Big enough to be interesting, with little pockets she could get to know, races she could hit up if it ever got boring, and plenty of potential employers. 

She spent the last of her coin on an apartment in the seedier part of town, got to know the neighbors, settled in.  When Lup cooked, it almost felt like a home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are <3.


	2. one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand now we start in on the story proper! 
> 
> I have no idea how the TAZ timeline works between Stolen Century and Here There Be Gerblins, so like, I'll try to be internally consistent but it may not match up with what we've been given in canon.

“Fuck ‘em up, Raven!” Lup shrieked from the stands, as loud as she could get without casting Thaumaturgy on herself.  Down below on the track, Sloane brawled with a hammerhead on the back of their own battlewagon; finally she headbutted him with a _crack,_ loud enough to hear all the way where Lup stood.  The hammerhead fell to the ground, and the crowd _roared._

Thank Istus she managed to get an apartment next to Hurley, Lup thought.  She was pretty sure the Raven and Ram would have been her favorite racers anyway, but now she got to have a personal stake in this mess.

Sloane finished off the last of the hammerheads and then ran across the top of the tank to the engine.  Her arms jerked, the crowd drew a breath (“Come on, babe, you got this,” Lup muttered under her breath) and then the tank shuddered to a halt, the engine dead.  Someone inside the tank yelled, but Sloane just saluted, gave them the finger, and sprinted off the tank.  She jumped, arms spread wide, and landed in her own battlewagon at Hurley’s side.

“THAT’S MY GIRL,” Lup yelled.  “YOU FUCKING GO RAVEN, YOU JUST MADE ME TEN BUCKS!”

Lup collapsed back into her seat—her throat hurt too much to keep yelling like this, anyway—and grinned at the man beside her.  Barry stared at Lup, his jaw slack, though whether it was at Sloane’s stunt or Lup’s prodigious yelling skills she couldn’t tell. 

Lup elbowed him.  “Pay up, Bluejeans.  Toldya she could do that without magic.”

He shook his head.  “No way.  That jump back onto the battlewagon had to be a spell.  She cleared what, twenty, twenty-five feet?”

“Did you see her cast?” Lup asked.  She slung an arm around the back of Barry’s seat and leaned in, biting back a laugh at his totally predictable blush.

“N-no.” 

So _easy,_ she thought fondly.  If she hadn’t seen him slinging around necromancy spells like a pro on the job where they had met a few months ago, Lup would never have thought he was capable of it.  As it turned out, Barry was her favorite combination of traits: competent where it counted but susceptible to Lup’s blatant, easy flirting.  “So, no spell.  Pay up,” she said again, and Barry sighed and reached for his coin pouch. 

“I am never letting you talk me into gambling again,” said Barry.  “Here.”

“How else would I make money?”

“Use your—elfy wiles on someone else,” Barry laughed. 

But they work on you so _well,_ Lup was going to say, only at that moment the Otters launched a spear into Hurley’s battlewagon.  It buried itself in the wood, dragging them back, and the Otters started to launch themselves over.

Lup shot to her feet.  “FUCK YOU GUYS!” she screamed as several hairy men pulled out their weapons.  Hurley swung out of her seat; Sloane neatly slid into her place, taking the wheel.  “WHAT ABOUT SOLIDARITY, YOU FUCKING FU—” Her throat gave up on her, the traitor.  Lup doubled over, coughing, and Barry pressed a water into her hands; she gulped it down.  When she looked back, Barry was giggling.

Hurley dispatched the Otters, but the setback knocked them into second place.  The Vultures swooped in front of them and took the finish line before Sloane could make up the difference.  “Fucking _idiots,_ ” Lup muttered as she collapsed, grumpy, back into her seat.

“They came in second place, at least?” Barry offered.

“Second place is just first place loser, babe,” said Lup.  “At least they got money out of it.”  She chewed her lip and looked around at the sweaty, smelly crowd.  A few people were leaving now that they knew the winner, but most of them were still watching the action as more battlewagons hurtled toward the finish.

Lup didn’t want to bother.  It was one thing to stick around when Hurley and Sloane won, but when they lost it felt pointless.  “C’mon, Barry,” she said, and pushed to her feet again.  “I told my friends I’d meet them at the gates after the race—let’s beat the crowd.”

“Ah, Lup, I wanted to talk about—”

She raised her eyebrows.  “It’s about to get real loud in here, buddy,” she said, and grabbed him by the collar of his plain white t-shirt, pulling him after her into the press of the crowd.  Lup heard him start to protest, but it trailed off into a breathless little laugh and _man_ she was glad for her elf hearing sometimes.  “Talk later!” she called back.

“Okay!”

They made it through the bleachers and to the outside of the gates with no incidents except for a few yelled curses—not actual curses, just swear words as Lup elbowed people out of her way, which was fair enough.  Finally, though, they got outside the crowd.  Lup leaned back against the chain-link fence and let go of Barry. 

“My friends’ll take a bit to get out here,” she said, pretending not to pay attention as Barry tried to adjust his super stretched t-shirt.  “What did you want to say, again?”

“So, I didn’t actually just show up for a house call.  Or to get dragged to a race,” said Barry.  He took off his big square glasses and started polishing them, probably because looking at Lup for too long was like looking at the sun, if she did say so herself. Or maybe he just wanted to have something to do with his hands.

“Booty call, then?”

“What?  I— _no,_ ” said Barry, blushing furiously. 

“Too easy, Barold,” said Lup.  Barry looked at her, then glared up at the sky like he was wondering what god was pissed off enough to bring Lup on him.  “What did you come by for?”

“You know how on that job where we met, we never actually found the thing we were hired to get?”

Lup nodded warily.

She still took merc jobs, these days; after about six months in Goldcliff working minimum wage shit, Lup had realized she was definitely going to go nuts if she didn’t get to set something on fire soon.  So she had gone back to her old work, wearing her signature red coat and all, using Goldcliff as a home base instead of wandering wherever the jobs took her.

A few months before, she and Barry had been hired by some rich old lady who had wanted a dangerous artifact, some kind of belt, trapped up in some wizard tower and surrounded by storms and poisonous plants and shit.  There were another few mercs hired for the same thing, but Lup had been drawn to Barry immediately—mostly because he also had a red coat identical to hers.  He didn’t look as rad as her in it, but that wasn’t Barry’s fault.  He still cut a good figure, and it was a nice team bonding opportunity.

They had reached the wizard’s tower, fought their way past the magical dogs that had been posted for security, lost two of their people—and the asshole didn’t even have the decency to still be in his tower with the artifact.  They had no idea where he had gone.  It grated on Lup, and not _just_ because she had only gotten half her pay.  She hated leaving business like that unfinished, and it sounded like the belt thing had the potential to do some bad shit.

“I got a lead,” said Barry.  “Tracked the guy to a place _way_ up north.  It’s not in the arctic, but getting there.  I don’t have the funds to pay you like a real job, but you didn’t seem happy with the way things went down last time, and you’re, uh, really good at setting things on fire so that will come in handy.  We can sell that sash thing to the lady when we get back, split the money fifty-fifty?”  His little half-smile was so darn hopeful and a little sheepish. 

Lup tapped her chin, considering.  She didn’t know Barry that well, not really, but he was competent enough to keep up with her—someone she could trust to watch her back.  She had never been very far up north, so that could get fun. 

Plus: money.

“You’re not hiring anyone else for this?” Lup asked.

Barry shook his head.  His blush, if possible, deepened. 

“Good,” said Lup.  “I’m all you need.”

“So you’re in?” asked Barry.

“I’m in,” said Lup, and held out her hand.  Just as Barry slipped his callused fingers into hers so they could shake hands, sealing the deal, she said, “On one condition.”

“What?” he asked warily.

“You come to dinner with me and my friends,” said Lup, and nodded at Hurley and Sloane, who had appeared behind Barry.  They looked like they always did after a race: sweaty, dusty, a little bruised.  But they were both grinning.  Hurley and Sloane did not share Lup’s opinion on first place losers. 

Barry half-turned, caught sight of their audience, and started.  Only Lup’s grip on his hand kept him from actually jumping, she was pretty sure.  “Barry, this is Hurley and Sloane—Hurley’s my neighbor.  We’re going to have dinner and I’m going to cook, which I’m pretty great at.  You in?”

“Um—yeah.  Yeah, sounds great,” said Barry.  He squeezed her fingers; the weight of them in hers was oddly familiar. 

Lup had a sudden, visceral sensation that she knew exactly what it would feel like to hold his hand, actually hold it, instead of this aborted half-shake they were doing.  She squeezed back, and Barry started again, like he’d forgotten what they were doing.  He very professionally shook her hand and then they dropped the contact.  Lup flexed her fingers afterward, and didn’t look to see if he was doing the same.

That wasn’t good.  Thinking he was cute, flirting, that was one thing.  This?  Was not the kind of thing Lup went for.

“So!” she said brightly, pushing the incident out of her mind, “it’s a deal.  Hey Hurley, Sloane.  This is Barry, he’s a coworker.”

“Nice to meet ya,” said Hurley, giving him a warm grin.  Sloane just half-waved and half-smiled—she half-did every expression that wasn’t directed at Hurley, really. 

“Yeah, um, you too,” said Barry.  He pushed his hair back from his face.  “Are you guys fans of the Raven and the Ram, too?”

Hurley and Sloane shared a grin.  “Yeah,” said Sloane, “you could say that.”

* * *

The walk back to Lup and Hurley’s apartment complex was mostly taken up by race-recap chatter, Hurley and Sloane being super coy and subtle the whole time, as they often were.  So Lup wasn’t too surprised when Barry touched her elbow to get her attention while Hurley and Sloane chatted and then straightened up to whisper in her ear, “They’re the Raven and Ram, aren’t they?”

In answer, Lup tapped a finger against her lips and winked.  Barry rolled his eyes.

Dinner was fettucine alfredo with chicken and a salad, because Lup felt like looking fancy but not like actually doing a lot.  The recipe was simple, comforting, and loaded with cheese, which in Lup’s opinion were the best things for food to be.  She left her guests with beers while she got started on the food, hands moving in practiced motions—this was one of the recipes she’d learned from her aunt, way back when she was a kid. 

While she was grilling the chicken, Sloane slinked into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, watching her work.  She and Hurley used to offer to help Lup with stuff like this, but Lup always turned them down; cooking was something she had always done alone. 

“Good job today, babe,” Lup said when it didn’t seem like Sloane was going to do anything but watch her.  “Sucks about the Otters though—so much for gay-lesbian solidarity, right?”

Sloane huffed out a laugh and examined her nails—polished black, of course.  “We’ll kick their asses first thing next time,” she said.

Lup almost offered her expertise on that front, but just like cooking was her thing, racing was Sloane and Hurley’s thing.  Asking to race with the two of them would be like asking to third-wheel on their date night.  “So, did you just come in here to look pretty, or did you want to say something?” Lup asked, and then shrugged.  “Not that I would _mind_ if it’s the first one.”

“Hurley wants to know if that Barry guy is _actually_ just a coworker,” Sloane said.

_Hurley._ Right.  Hurley was the chatty one, but Sloane hoarded gossip like some kind of…gossip…dragon. 

Hmm.

Maybe Lup should work on her metaphors.

“He is,” said Lup, rolling her eyes.  “He has a little crush on me, but who can blame him?”

Sloane wrinkled her nose.  “Isn’t he a little old for you?  He has to be in his forties.”

Oh.  So that was how old middle-aged humans were; Lup thought that was eighties.  “And I’m pushing one-fifty,” said Lup.  Okay, so she was lying a little, but what the hell. 

Sloane raised a thick, perfectly-arched eyebrow, but that was all the reaction she got.

Lup was pretty happy with her personality and general presentation, but sometimes she wished she could pull off Sloane’s stone-cold goth bitch thing.

“Anyway,” Lup continued, “Barry’s fine.  Bit of a pushover, actually, no need to worry.  It’s not like he’s a wanted-thief-slash-drag-racer.”

Sloane shrugged, conceding the point.  “Well.  You don’t bring a lot of people around, besides us.  I was just wondering.”  With that she left the kitchen, leaving Lup to her thoughts as she kept the food going, the voices from her living room providing a comforting background noise.

The truth was—Sloane was right.  Lup was getting a lot…friendlier with Barry than usual.  Sure, Lup was social enough, but mostly on a shallow level.  She didn’t let a lot of people into her own space.  It had taken over a year for her to invite Hurley over for dinner.  And like she had told Sloane, Barry was a pushover.  It wasn’t as if any of this was _his_ idea, besides the professional stuff.

There was just…something familiar about him, about the way they clicked.  A sense of déjà vu, like they’d met in another life or some shit.

Lup rolled her eyes.  “Stupid,” she muttered, and flipped her chicken over. 

Besides.  She was about to spend weeks travelling with the guy; by the end of it, she would probably just be sick of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are <3.


End file.
